


Dog Days, Summer 2015

by APgeeksout



Category: World Wrestling Entertainment
Genre: Fluff and Angst, Gen, Pets
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-01-27
Updated: 2021-01-27
Packaged: 2021-03-14 15:34:46
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,988
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/28922925
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/APgeeksout/pseuds/APgeeksout
Summary: “It just, kinda, happened.” Dean shrugged. Lots of stuff just sort of happened around Dean; he figured the Big Dog would be used to it by now. “Like, I know it's probably dumb, but after she warmed up to me, I couldn't just ditch her, right?”
Comments: 3
Kudos: 11
Collections: Bulletproof 20/21





	Dog Days, Summer 2015

**Author's Note:**

  * For [gloss](https://archiveofourown.org/users/gloss/gifts).



> Bulletproof Exchange Mini-Primer:
> 
> This is for the tag “Tough &/or cranky character adopts/is adopted by a stray”. Here are some [pics](https://www.instagram.com/p/3FO54OgFFW/) and [gifs ](https://fyeahambrose.tumblr.com/post/119797637486/thedeanambrose-picks-his-favorite-puppy-of-the)of [Dean Ambrose](https://fyeahambrose.tumblr.com/post/120936097276) in 2015 [playing with some puppies](https://dritydeeds.tumblr.com/post/120948448563) at a shelter.
> 
> The performer who wrestled as Dean Ambrose does now have some cute dogs IRL, but this fic features an Original Female Dog. I trust you'll forgive my omitting that tag. c: 
> 
> At the time this is set, the other humans appearing are, respectively: Dean's closest friend + steady travel partner; the self-described “wrestling soulmate” who’s spent the last year or so breaking his heart; a formerly bitter rival turned fond mentor; and the co-worker he flirts with outrageously on-camera (+ will later marry). I've tagged this as gen, and I think it could plausibly be read that way, but I also ship Dean pretty hard with all these characters, so I suspect the prescription on your goggles wouldn't need to be too strong if you'd rather take it from a shippy angle.

“It just, kinda, happened.” Dean shrugged. Lots of stuff just sort of happened around Dean; he figured the Big Dog would be used to it by now. “Like, I know it's probably dumb, but after she warmed up to me, I couldn't just ditch her, right?”

The photo op had been winding down – Natty fielding questions about her own cats at home, even Lana softening, just a little, with the puppies – and he'd started to straighten up and make for the door, ready to sign a few last autographs and hide out in the rental. Then, the mutt at his feet had cocked her head at him, her literal puppy-dog eyes wide and sad, and made a high, thin noise in the back of her throat.

“You and me both, sister,” he'd said, and sat back down to rub over her brown and white speckled back and ribs again. Her tail had thwapped against his jeans a couple of times and she'd worried at the heel of his hand with surprisingly gentle teeth and the big wooden sign for the kennel he always passed on the way to his favorite trailhead had crept into his mind.

“Nothing dumb about wanting somebody to take care of,” Roman said, his voice pulling him back to the room.

Roman smiled, first at him, then down at the dog - at Annie - who was sniffing curiously along the baseboards, doing a little recon of the hotel room, her whip of a tail slowly coming untucked from between her back legs.

He wondered for just a beat if this was going to be one of those impulsive decisions that fucked him up sooner rather than later. Maybe Annie would've been better off with somebody with a nine-to-five and a big backyard and a bunch of kids to make over her. Maybe he'd be better off being responsible for, like, a cactus or some sea monkeys.

“Hi, sweetheart,” Roman said, and leaned down from his seat at the desk to offer her a hand.

She shrank back, orbiting closer to Dean and putting an honest-to-god lump in his throat. It'd been a lot of years since he'd been somebody's security, and it had shredded him to have her torn away.

“'Sweetheart', huh?” He pushed away the heavier thoughts and smirked at Roman. “When's the last time that one didn't work for you?”

He dropped from the foot of the bed to the carpet, and Annie zipped over, standing on his thigh with two sharp little feet and pressing her cold nose into his palm. He rubbed at the soft fur behind her ears, and laughed when she just kind of wilted into his lap.

“She'll come around,” Roman said, and reached out to scratch his fingers through Dean’s hair. “They always do.”

* * *

Dean was pretty sure he owed somebody in the front office his firstborn - or at least a case of good whisky - for all their wrangling to get him back to Vegas with Annie as an unexpected plus-one. He felt a little like he was failing her already, putting her through a flight and the drives to and from the airports right out of the gate - a draining enough day of travel for him, knowing what was going on - but she'd rolled with the punches all day. Even seemed to like the ride home, sitting in the cab with him, her nose poked out of the cracked window to snuffle in some of the desert rolling by. 

She’d had her grand tour, nosing through the house and rambling around the patio and landscaping out back, reminding him of things he needed to stash better and other ways he needed to puppyproof before he gave her the run of the place. He could already see her scoping out early favorite spots: the cool stone floor of the pantry, nestled into the little patch of real estate between the stacks of canned food he'd kept laying in, even so long after it'd started to look like he knew where his next meal would be coming from; the cubby beneath the bench by the front door, where his boots usually lived when they weren't on his feet; tucked between the curtain and the glass in the window that faced the neighboring house with the busy bird- and squirrel-feeders clustered at the end of its porch. Wherever he was. 

Sitting in the locker room last night, throwing in some idle trash talk while Cesaro tried to tempt Annie with a gym towel knotted into a makeshift tug-of-war rope, he’d scrolled through the pet store website on his phone, adding food and treats and dishes and toys - one of everything, it felt like - to his cart. She'd stuck to his side while he sifted through the delivery boxes that had been waiting for them and trotted after him as he'd put it all away. He'd never noticed before, how the house was full of empty spaces, just waiting to be filled up: bagged kibble on a high pantry shelf, out of reach of nibbling teeth; toys heaped in a crate in the living room, except for a stuffed turtle she'd chosen to carry around, a wedge of it's crinkly fabric shell worried between her jaws; spare leashes hung from an empty hook by the back door; a fleece-lined bed tucked into the corner of his bedroom. 

A soft, new, fleece-lined bed in the corner that he didn't have the heart to move her off into that night when she took a flying leap up onto the mattress instead. She flopped onto her back next to him, showing her freckled belly, one ear flipped inside out, and somehow it felt like he was the one with all his soft places exposed. He fixed her ear and pressed a kiss to its soft edge. "Welcome home, trouble." 

* * *

Annie bustled around the wide concrete hallways of the arena, casing the joint for friends or treats or friends-with-treats, nose to the ground, tail switching like a windshield wiper. A harried-looking P.A. flagged Dean down, and he stopped to chat and gave Annie some slack on the retractable leash to keep exploring. Not so much line that she'd be able to make her way down to catering unsupervised, but enough that, by the time he’d flipped through the kid’s stack of new t-shirt sketches and taken a copy of the color-coded timetable of his media appointments over the week leading in to pay-per-view, she had moseyed her way around a corner and out of sight.

When he rounded the turn to catch up with her, he found that they weren't alone. Seth had taken a knee on the polished floor, and Annie was standing on her hind legs, front paws scrabbling against his hoodie as she craned up to slurp kisses onto his face. He might have felt betrayed, but he could hardly blame her for being drawn in by Seth; at worst, she was being just dumb enough to follow his own example.

The smile on Seth's face was the easy, open one that he'd spent the last year and change insisting was never real to begin with, and he was laughing softly and running through the patter Dean remembered from every time a dog had crossed the Shield's path - a gentle babble of _who's so pretty who's so good is it you it is for sure oh i love you too_ \- and scrubbing his hands affectionately over her coat. He was so wrapped up in Annie that it took him a moment to register who was holding the other end of her leash.

"Ambrose." His face shuttered, hardening into a sneer, even as his hands remained gentle on Annie, dislodging her paw from the neck of his sweatshirt and resettling her onto the floor. He brought himself back up to his full height and squared up his shoulders warily. It'd been months since he'd jumped Seth, especially without the benefit of a crowd to enjoy it with him. There was something sickly satisfying in knowing he could still rattle him without much trying; he could still yank his chain, no matter how little Seth said he’d ever meant.

“Don’t be too flattered, sunshine,” he said, and brought Annie back to his side with a low whistle. “She likes to lick the trashcan, too.”

* * *

“How come all our mail is always for you? Huh? That why you don’t hassle the mailman anymore?”

Annie cocked her head at him and flicked her tail a couple of times, but didn’t move from her spot on the rug, centered in a patch of late-afternoon sun. Definitely hadn’t noticed yet that part of today’s haul was the pet store order, full of flea dope she wouldn’t want and bacon treats and a puzzle toy she definitely would. 

He flipped through the rest: a greeting card from the vet’s office with a parade of cartoon mutts bidding them to Enjoy the Dog Days of Summer!, coupons from a groomer, an invoice from the dog sitter, flyers for a fundraiser at the dog park and Pup Night at the Triple A stadium, a reminder from the kennel of the stay he’d booked for her during the upcoming European tour. There was also a padded mailer with an Orlando postmark.

He slid a thumb under the flap and messily split it open, tipped the contents out into his palm, and found himself holding a collar, sturdy black leather with a pattern of barbed wire and blooming roses tooled into its length and a little silver plate bearing Annie’s name and his address.

He reached back inside the envelope and fished out a single sheet of Performance Center letterhead, from the the desk of NXT General Manager William Regal. The handwritten note - thick strokes, filling up the center of the page; a Man’s Man’s penmanship, for sure - read: _Rumor has it we’ve both become quite domesticated. There are surely worse reputations to live down to. Take care of yourself, and your little dog, too._

* * *

“Hey! Who’s this?” Renee looked up from her notes with the look of delight that people - even if they didn’t already know or like him - tended to greet him with when he had the pooch in tow. She was barefoot, a pair of tall, glittery heels lined up atop the closed lid of an equipment crate at her hip, and Annie homed in on her red-painted toes, all cold nose and sloppy kisses. Renee squirmed away from the attention, but with more laughter than annoyance. “That tickles!”

"Hey, mutt, we're trying to make a good impression here!" he said, and gave one of the commands they were still working on. He waited for her to sit, then turned back to Renee. “S’my best girl, Annie. Sorry. She's got her old man's manners.”

"Seems housebroken to me," she said, smiling slyly. "Can I?" she gestured toward their feet, and when he nodded, she crouched down to rub over Annie’s squirming shape and cooed, “Hi, Annie. Hi, girl.” 

He’d been hoping he could leave her to chill with Renee for a few later on in the show, since it was looking more and more like he and Roman were gonna have to go out together and crack some heads tonight, and this seemed like a hopeful sign. 

She tipped her face up to look at him. “Annie - like ‘It’s A Hard-Knock Life’?”

He stooped down to their level and tickled over Annie’s ribs, getting her cheerfully riled up: wiggly and irresistible. “I was kinda thinking like ‘the goblins that’ll getcha if you don’t watch out’,” he said, growling out the line from the poem in one of his increasingly extensive collection of special talking-to-Annie voices, “but that's a good one, too.”

Renee smiled softly and cradled Annie’s head in her palms, stroking over her silky ears. “Hi, sweet girl. I feel pretty good about tomorrow. How about you?”


End file.
